Since U Been Gone.. Nail Art.

Hello world - it's me! I haven't posted in far too long but a burst of positivity and creativity has rendered me feeling in the mood for some blogging.

Since I've posted work has really picked up - I'd unfortunately lost my writing "pizazz" but it's back - I hear people cheering already (perhaps in my own mind..?) 

Here are a few of the the nail looks that have been done since my last post:

Manicure Monday: OPI - Baby Please Come Home

I know it's been a hot damn minute since I updated and I have no excuse other than that I've had nothing worthy of blogging about. I'm going to try and make this a regular feature however - manicure monday! Sometimes it will be art and others just keeping it plain and simple.

Today's look is OPI's Baby Please Come Home which was part of their Mariah Carey holiday collection for Christmas. It's a liquid sand texture and is as good as all other OPI textured polishes! Whilst it's supposedly a Christmas polish, I think this light, cool lavender is perfect for spring and is a really lovely, simple colour with a hint of something else to spice it up. This is two coats.

Christmas nails #2 - snowflakes

I decided to up my game a little more on the Christmas nails and went for a snowflake look! I absolutely love the way this came out :)

I first layered a coat of Rimmel Azure over one coat of OPI's Eurso... Euro before drawing the snowflakes and dots on with Barry M's white nail art pen. I finished it off with a nice slab of Essie's Good To Go and voila!

Left hand - with flash

Closer shot of left hand - with flash

Macro thumb shot - with flash

Left hand - with flash

Left hand - no flash

Right hand - no flash

Both hands - with flash

September/October favourites

Another monthly favourites blog coming up and this time there is a lot! I haven't written one for nearing three months so I've culminated some real treats in that time. Here are the ones I've loved the most!

1. Smashbox - Photo Finish Foundation Primer £25 (full size): I first tried this when I'd read reviews from a couple of bloggers claiming Smashbox to be a really great brand. I decided that rather than going all out and trying the full sized products that I would buy the little set you can get which has three different primers in it - including this and my number 2 favourite (see below!). I tried this when I went on holiday to America, fell in love with the first use and promptly headed to Sephora to grab the full size bottle. I expected this mini size to run out fairly quickly but I've been using it daily for nearly two months and it's still going strong! Bravo, Smashbo, bravo!

You can get the kit from Boots here for £14: http://www.boots.com/en/Smashbox-Its-Your-Prime_1308778/

2. Smashbox - Photo Finish Hydrating Under Eye Primer - £21 (full size): As stated above, this came in the little set I got from Boots. At first I was unsure what difference this would really make but boy was I wrong! It totally eliminates those pesky cakey lines you can sometimes get with certain concealers and keeps the concealer in place all day! I have barely even scratched the surface of this tube but can see myself picking up the full size bottle when I eventually run out!

You can grab this from Boots (be warned, it's not cheap!) http://www.boots.com/en/Smashbox-Photo-Finish-Hydrating-Under-Eye-Primer_1281414/

3. The Body Shop - Vitamin E Nourishing Night Cream - £11: TBS are one of my favourite brands for moisturisers and this does not disappoint. I've been using it overnight as towards the colder weather my skin tends to struggle but this keeps a nice moisture in my skin when I pair it with number 4 of my favourites.

Get this from TBS here - http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/shop-by-range/vitamin-e/vitamin-e-night-cream.aspx 

4. The Body Shop - Vitamin E Moisture Lotion SPF 15 - £11: This is basically the day version of the item above so it's a little less thick but also has the added bonus of SPF 15 which, even during the winter months is a big bonus to stop from any kind of sun damage! It's lasted for ages as I picked this up months ago and have barely used any despite daily use!

You can grab this here: http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/shop-by-range/vitamin-e/vitamin-e-spf15-moisture-lotion.aspx

5. Ulta - Vanilla Sugar Anti-Bacterial Hand Gel Sanitiser: I picked this (and the next few!) up from shops in America which unfortunately don't ship to the UK so I have no way of sharing these to my fellow Brits but this baby is amazing! I can't remember exactly how much it was but it wasn't a lot and smells absolutely divine! It's essentially the same as any old gel hand sanitiser but that smell... Yum!

6. NYX - Matte Finish Setting Spray: I absolutely ADORE this setting spray - when paired with the next item it holds my makeup on perfectly and keeps a fantastic matte finish which is especially great when you have oily skin! Oh how I need this to be sold in the UK!

7. Urban Decay De-Slick Mattifying Powder: Oh this is glorious! Urban Decay is a brand I've been wanting to try for so long based on recommendations but have never really been able to justify the steep price tag for. In America literally EVERY beauty product is so much cheaper so I decided what the heck? I'd go for it! I'm so chuffed I did, too, as this is a wonder product. The powder initially looks a white/lilac colour and when I opened it I was like woah, this is not what I was expecting. However, it literally is incredible - it just takes away that shine instantly and lasts for ages. It really is true that what you get is what you pay for! The packaging is really cute too which shouldn't really matter but... It does!

8. OPI - Alcatraz...Rocks!: This was another purchase from the USA but can also be bought over here (for a much steeper price, mind you!). I did a review of this some weeks back but this liquid sand shade has jumped to my favourites with it's purple /gold sandy goodness! 

9. Tarte - MultiplEYE Lash Enhancing Liquid Eyeliner: Another America purchase and boy, did I buy right! This is hands down the best eyeliner I've ever worked with. It goes on like a dream with great pigmentation and stays put all day with no real smudging. Plus, it claims to have "lash enhancing" qualities which I really do feel is true as my eyelashes look longer, fuller and feel softer. 

10. L'Oreal Studio Secrets Pro Lip Tint - Runway Rose - £8.49: I've tried quite a lot of lip tints now and this is definitely my favourite. It's got great colouration which is long lasting and it also smells amazing! 

I picked this up at Superdrug here: http://www.superdrug.com/loreal/loreal-pro-tint-lipstain-runway-rose/invt/496450

11. Police - To Be Queen - £30: Yes, I know, another perfume! But I have truly found my favourite now - this is just a beautiful smell! For 125ml the price is also incredible and it was well worth the buy!

Get this from Superdrug here: http://www.superdrug.com/fragrance-for-her/police-to-be-queen-edp-125ml/invt/757857

12. Thor 2: The Dark World: The above was the last of the beauty items and now we move on to the randoms. This film was literally incredible - easily my favourite Marvel movie ever (and if you know me, you know how much I love that Marvel!) I couldn't personally find a single fault and everything was just done right. I shall definitely be heading back to the cinema to see this again!

13. Yankee Candle - Christmas Cookie: Oh goodness this candle is like heaven in aroma form. Well, well worth the money for the hours of amazing scent-filled bliss! I loved this so much that I purchased the giant size after burning out the smaller within a few days!

14. Pokemon - X: We're rapidly approaching the end of the favourites and the last three are games. I have adored Pokemon since I can remember and this is no different! I actually picked up a Nintendo 3DS specifically to play this game (sad, I know)! It's a typical Pokemon game but has somehow been greatly entertaining still!

15. Grand Theft Auto V - Xbox 360: Whilst impatiently awaiting the arrival of the Xbox One, I decided to purchase this game after my brother had been raving on about how good it was and it hasn't let me down! The online game play is so much fun that I genuinely haven't completely any more the of the story than was necessary to actually access the online part of it!

16. Assassin's Creed IV - Black Flag - Xbox 360: We've reached the end of the favourites for the last few months and have arrived on my favourite game of all three. The Assassin's Creed franchise is easily my favourite on Xbox and this has exceeded the previous titles by a long way (though perhaps not Brotherhood). Well worth the money as the story has kept me playing for a long time and I'm still only 40% complete!

OPI - Liquid Sand nail art

Ever since I saw the promo pictures for the film The Great Gatsby, I loved the art in the background. I then proceeded to fall in love with the idea when Sammy from The Nailasaurus did her take on it too. Combining the idea of that and the fact that I've also wanted to try out some proper textured nail art, I put them together and came up with this!

I have to say, this is probably one of my favourite nail art looks that I've done! It turns out that liquid sand is a very forgiving texture to work with as many of the usually wiggly lines that I usually create are just hidden by the texture!

For this look, I combined my new love Alcatraz... Rocks! (of which you can check out my review of here!) with another of OPI's liquid sand shades in Honey Ryder. After adding some random lines and triangles, this is the final look!

OPI - Alcatraz... Rocks swatches and review!

I'm finally back from holiday to America (which was so good that I didn't want to come home!) and decided to do some posts of the polishes that I got whilst I was there. OPI is ridiculously cheap in America compared to the UK so I made sure to stock up! I'd been wanting Alcatraz...Rocks! since I saw the first images come out and leapt on the chance to buy it at basically half the price!!

Alcatraz...Rocks is another liquid sand formula from OPI and true to form, it totally rocks (see what I did there? Oh, the wit! *ducks rotten vegetables*). It's a gorgeous deep purple glitter (though I've seen it described by many as a cobalt blue which personally I can't really see!) with flecks of multicoloured glitter throughout - gold, pink, green - you name it! It's seriously, seriously awesome!

The finish is the usual "sandy" feel and I only needed two coats for full opacity. In the shade this colour is beautiful but when the sunlight hits this baby, wow does it shine! I have to say, it's probably one of my favourite ever nail varnishes! I can also say with some confidence that even if you don't like the liquid sand finish, you should get this polish as with a top-coat this would be a stunner!

With flash - just look at that glitter!!

In the shade

Macro-shot of the glitter-bomb beauty!

L'Oreal Paris Confetti nail polish - review and swatches

I've seen a few bloggers pick up this polish and have loved the look of it so I decided it was time that I did too! I actually managed to get this free on a 3 for 2 offer at Boots which was an added bonus!

Firstly, I will say that I love how jam-packed this is with glitter. It has black and white hex glitter with some larger pieces thrown in but also has a really really fine subtle black shimmer glitter too which just makes it a little different from most black and white glitters!

However, this polish was an absolute nightmare formula wise for me. It was thick as anything and the base is so swallowed up by the glitter that it was dragging horribly. Luckily a coat of Seche Vite sorted that out but it was still rather disappointing to see. Also, the brush had several bent bristles which was a pain in the bum! Not a fault maybe, just bad luck!

I layered one coat of this over two coats of OPI's You're Such a Budapest.

Summery fishtail braid - yellow, pink and white!

I really fancied doing something super summery today so picked out some colours that were bold and warm to do a fishtail braid style. This look it quite simple to do but time consuming and can be a pain when doing it on your non-dominant hand! It turned out quite well though so I'm pleased!

Here is what I used to create this look: (from l-r) OPI - Natural Nail base coat, Sinful Colours - Unicorn, NYC - Pinstripe White, OPI - Chic From Ears To Tail, Seche Vite